Thuds sounded all along the ship’s sides. The long boats had reached the Tang. Pirates flung their grapnels with practised precision and for every rope a desperate sailor cut, two more gripped with irons claws biting deep with the weight of men climbing the lines below. The pirates swarmed over the rail, sailcloth jackets soaked in pitch to foil the few blades that the sailors could muster. Once on the deck, every raider drew short swords or daggers in either hand, hilts wrapping round into brazen knuckles for a brutal punch if close quarters foiled a stroke with a blade.

“Zistra feydra en—” Parrail choked on his enchantment as a grappling iron soaring high over the rail hit a sailor at the bottom of the aft castle stair. The man shrieked, razor sharp points ripping open his face and chest.

Instinct brought blazing fire to Naldeth’s outstretched palm. He threw it full in the face of the first pirate to set foot on the deck by the screaming man. Crimson with magic, flames wrapped around the pirate with a furnace roar. Hair blazed in a passing flash then the man’s naked scalp blackened and split, face beneath contorted in tortured shock. Raw flesh oozed for a scant breath before the all-consuming fire scoured the man’s silent scream to the rictus grin of a skull. He fell, head charred and naked bone, arms scorched and blistered, booted legs untouched. Sparks took hold of the pitch in his smouldering jerkin and the magical fire ran greedily across the deck leaving barely a scorch mark. It leapt to the grappling iron, melting it into a shapeless lump before consuming the rope as it went in search of fresh victims in the boat below. Unseen screams lifted above the ear-splitting din of the vicious struggle aboard.

“Wizard, yonder!” Master Gede waved at a new sail. A gaff-rigged ship, deft and manoeuvrable was swooping down the anchorage. Barely two thirds the length of the Tang, the single mast carried triangular headsails rigged to the bowsprit and cut back all the better to spill wind and turn the ship in its own length. The square topsail and fore-and-aft mainsail drove her on and a bold red pennon streamed from the masthead, a black snake writhing down the length of it.

Frenzied, Naldeth snatched at the roiling air around him but a hail of slingshot thudded all around, bruising him cruelly. He wove a frantic, fragile shield but it was too late. Master Gede was down, bleeding from a gash to the head, the Tang drifting forlorn without his guiding hand.

Parrail had been vomiting but struggled towards the captain on his hands and knees. Tears poured down the scholar’s face but he gritted his teeth and mouthed the measured syllables of a charm.

Naldeth looked wildly into the waist of the ship where the crew fought with pirates swarming aboard from all directions. Gede’s boatswain went down to a slashing blade, the shipwright beside him struggling to defend himself with a belaying pin at the same time as stretching a hand to his fallen comrade. The pirate hacked it from his arm and raised his weapon for a killing blow but the sailor who’d fallen first kicked out with his last breath. The one-handed sailor smashed the pirate’s face to a bloody pulp with his length of solid oak but another raider cut him down, stamping for footing on the bodies of ally and prey alike.

“Nis tal eld ar fen.” Parrail wiped bile from his chin. He knelt beside Master Gede but his eyes were fixed on the murderous pirate below. The man yelled and clapped his hands to his face, swords forgotten as he swung this way and that rubbing at his eyes.

“I have him!” Naldeth exulted. He pulled a shaft of lightning from the confusion of grey and white clouds overhead and seared the man dead but a blue echo of his magic flashed all around him drawing several arrows. Worse, pirates below made a concerted move towards the rear deck.

Parrail grabbed at the mage’s tunic. He drew a deep breath, enunciating an incantation with meticulous care. Naldeth was simply frozen with fear until he saw the pirates intent on his death had halted, confused like a pack of questing hounds who’d lost their scent. Faces turned to the aftdeck seemed to be looking straight through him.

Parrail’s eyes were hollow with consternation. “What do we do now?”

“Take hold.” Naldeth held out a shaking hand, hoping he was equal to his sudden inspiration.

Parr ail snatched at it like a drowning man. “But Master Gede—”

Too late. An azure spiral of power bound his arms to his sides, his feet leaving the deck for an instant before he was plunged into darkness. Parrail groaned with misery as his abused stomach sought to empty itself once more. Then he realised they were in the dimness below decks. Panicked voices rose in the broad hold where those hoping for a life in Kellarin had been waiting out the long days at sea among their hammocks and chests of treasured possessions.

“What’s happening?” demanded a man’s voice.

“It’s pirates!” Naldeth replied, anguished. “They’re killing everyone!”

The consternation that provoked threatened to turn to outright hysteria but everyone fell silent a few moments later when a hatch at the far end of the deck opened to the white and terrified faces below.

“Out!” A swarthy Gidestan beckoned with a bloodstained glove.

The hapless youth at the bottom of the ladder looked around wildly for guidance but everyone else dropped their gaze.

“Out, all of you.” The Gidestan sounded menacing.

The lad climbed slowly up the ladder, yelping as his head reached deck level and unexpected hands hauled him bodily through the hatch.

“And the rest!” What little patience the Gidestan had was plainly exhausted.

Someone else was half pushed, half urged up the ladder and others followed. A surge of bodies carried Naldeth and Parrail closer to the shaft of pitiless daylight, whimpers of fear and ragged breaths of distress all around them.

“We work no magic or enchantment.” Parrail dug painful fingers into Naldeth’s arm as the wizard opened his mouth. “We have to live long enough to get word out to Hadrumal or somewhere, anywhere.”

The press brought the two of them to the ladder and they had no choice but to climb, Parrail first then Naldeth close behind him. Scrambling on to the deck, rough hands shoved them towards the motionless crowd clustered around the main mast. Homespun folk with the honest faces of craftsmen and farmers huddled together, watching the pirates casually tossing the bodies of the slain overboard. Parrail recognised the ship’s sailmaker, the helmsman, a farmer from Dalasor whose name he couldn’t recall.

A few were looking wide-eyed at the forecastle where a bare-chested pirate was tying up the remaining sailors. A few struggled with the pirates restraining them, more went with sullen obedience but one man managed to break free. He hit out wildly, felling one and then kicking out to catch another in the groin, shouting some incomprehensible abuse. The defiance died on his lips as the bare-chested man smashed the back of his head with an iron bar. He twisted his fingers in the blood-soaked wavy hair and held the corpse up to warn sailors and passengers alike. “That’s what making trouble gets you!”

Naldeth’s gorge rose at the sight of the dead man’s misshapen pate, bone gleaming white around grey pulp and gore. He swallowed hard and his terror unexpectedly receded in the face of desperate calm as he forced himself to assess his plight. At least he and Parrail were dressed much the same as the rest of the passengers. For the first time since his childhood he breathed a thanks to Saedrin. The showy robes and elemental colours fashionable in Hadrumal would have condemned him as a mage at once.

With the unresisting sailors now bound, pirates were moving among the prisoners, cutting knives and purses from belts, ripping the few pieces of jewellery visible from necks and wrists, dumping all the spoils in a prosaic wicker basket once destined for a goodwife’s trips to market.